


before the fall

by entropyves



Series: vampire apocalypse [1]
Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Trust Issues, enemies to lovers I guess, jinsoul has a cool face scar, jinsoul has ptsd from the war, jinsoul is a vampire in stem, shes kinda touchy about it though, sooyoung is a werewolf, well shes a lycan which is a werewolf that can change at will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:08:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28059693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entropyves/pseuds/entropyves
Summary: Plagued by her nightmares of the war, Jinsoul finds the universe mocking her when the only thing that stops it is Sooyoung.
Relationships: Ha Sooyoung | Yves/Jung Jinsol | Jinsoul
Series: vampire apocalypse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2055435
Comments: 15
Kudos: 51
Collections: Yves and Jinsoul Fic Fest (Round 1)





	before the fall

**Author's Note:**

> i enjoyed thinking about the lore of this world so it’s an extension of another fic i wrote for dc
> 
> check out the other fics in this ficfest!! thank u to bia for hosting :D
> 
> tw// self harm, needles, amputation

The cold of the night air laps at her skin, enveloping her as its own. The polluted world barely gives her relief from the suffocation of the lab but there is still something to be said about feeling air on your skin.

She trawls the neon lit narrow streets, waiting for a human to stumble their way into her path. Drunk is not a taste preference but the thinness of the blood makes it much easier to feed quickly. Jinsoul would always pick pragmatism over luxury. 

A dazed body in her arms as the blood replenishes her for another day. The bitter taste of smirnoff and smog does little to bother her in the way it should, her mind is elsewhere. The visions of the past had not haunted her sleep for the first time, her mind ticking with the most logical theories she could procure for causation of such events. Coming to the conclusion that maybe falling asleep in the labs for once had proved soothing. But as soon as she is thankful for the lack of the memories new ones surface as she feeds and the flashback of the Second Sired digging her thumbs into the eyes of a wolf, and the face of the child strikes her like blunt force trauma and she drops the human she is feeding on. Of course, things just don’t go away so easily. 

*

“You really shouldn’t touch those bars  _ this time _ , you know,” Jinsoul tapped a pen against the metal. “Pure silver.”

_ ‘This time _ ’ alluding to the fact that the Lycan had tricked Jinsoul once already into escaping, promptly to be caught by The Chosen herself and dragged back with that arrogant smirk still on her face. And  _ this time _ a layer of security had been added and Jinsoul had sworn to herself that she would not fall for cheap tricks again, she was the master of her impulses, especially as she never wished to see the Lycan in wolf form again in any circumstance. 

The Lycan pushed herself off the wall and unfolded her arms, stepping out of the shadows, “thanks for the tip. I wish you’d been down here earlier,” she showcases a healing burn on her finger on her left. 

Her face is in the light now, Jinsoul can pick out all the details, the intensity of her gaze, the slope of her nose, the small scattered scarring from battles lost, the mole on her cheek, her lips... She blinked.

She doesn’t look like she smells like a wet dog but Jinsoul had lost the sense all those years ago. 

_ “And that is why you are perfect for this job”  _ The Second Sired would say,  _ “You can sit on your arse for hours reading your books without anything bothering you,”  _ and then would pat her cheek much too hard. 

She is right of course, Mother had put it in a much more delicate way. Praising Jinsoul for her meticulousness, how crucial she is in revolutionising the war. The war that they are losing. 

Letting the seconds fall away, Jinsoul slowly pulled out a pocket watch and clicked the start button. Looking between the hand and the timer, she placed a pen in her mouth while she juggled with a clipboard. 

“What are you doing?” The Lycan raised an eyebrow.

“I need to see how fast you heal.” 

“Well you don’t know how long it’s been before you came down.”

Pausing, Jinsoul looked the Lycan in the eyes this time. She took the pen out of her mouth.

“Stop talking.” 

“But I’m right.”

Jinsoul clicked the button again, ending the timer. 

“Alright. This time put your whole hand on the bar and I'll time it.”

“I’m not doing that,” the Lycan chuckled.

“You were so quick to tell me how it’s done, so do it.”

“If you think I’m going to hurt myself for you?”

“And you had so much to say, I guess it means you’re all bark and no bite.”

“What, you think I can’t handle a bit of pain?”

“Clearly not.”

Without saying another word the Lycan pushed up her left sleeve and reached out to the bar, firmly wrapping her left hand around it. 

Jinsoul’s eyes widen, scarcely believing the bait is taken so easily. It’s as Mother would say,  _ they’re animals.  _

The Lycan’s face began to contort. The sound of sizzling flesh is soon replaced by a yelp of pain and the hand is released. Jinsoul’s thumb is quick to start the timer again. 

“Happy now?” the Lycan snarled, clutching her burnt hand. 

Jinsoul is wordless, looking between the wound, the timer, writing the progression of the healing process, looking at the wound again and so on. 

The Lycan’s chest heaved during the process and beads of sweat form on her temples. 

Jinsoul can’t help but cast her gaze at the physical signs of distress. It is painful for the Lycan to heal, but Jinsoul feels a shred of something she mistakes as satisfaction from it.

She’d studied the limb regeneration in books, their ability to shapeshift at will. she had studied samples but whatever blood she’d received had always been from dead specimens, courtesy of the Second Sired. But books and samples could only provide so much and what she had seen on the battlefield that day had marked her with a curiosity that had rooted itself firmly to her ambitions.

Mother herself had been hesitant to allow her to study the Lycan, to allow her to truly see their nature, not after the battlefield, not after what Jinsoul lived with. She absentmindedly grazed her finger over the three lines of scar tissue that run diagonally across her forehead, over the nose and end near her jaw. 

*

The red sunlight prickles at her skin. The ache of her scar throbs. She is still caught in the limbo between sleep and consciousness. Faces of The Chosen and The Second Sired buzz in her brain like an unwelcome alarm clock until she reaches the point in her sleeping terror when it dies in front of her again. 

Attempting to blink the sight of the lifeless lycan morphing back to its child form,  _ they’re savages _ , she repeats Mother’s words,  _ they’re animals _ .

If she was still human her body would’ve been covered in a cold sweat, she touched the back of her neck just in case and found her hand trembling.

Much akin to the belly of a human, the hunger rumbles and does not subside until it is fed. Humans however no longer practise hunting; they're slow, weak, and easy. Child’s play. It's no wonder they hid behind the wolves. Jinsoul felt sorry for them and their arrogance. Killing humans did not appeal to her. Taking life in general. It’s a waste and it’s horrifying. The inescapable image of the dead child reminds her every time she closes her eyes.

*

“You’re not going to hook me up to one of those chairs right?”

Jinsoul took a step closer. 

She wanted to just look, not talk.

“Hey, I asked you a question.”

“Silence, please.” 

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not here to talk to you,” she pulled out a needle.

“Oh you’re here to just stick stuff in me. Great,” the Lycan scoffed.

“Are you mocking me?”

Through the darkness Jinsoul saw an unmistakable flash of teeth.

“I don’t know, am I?”

“If you would just shut up,” so she could think and study and not let this voice distract her. 

“Why?”

“Because... I said so,” her voice almost cracked.

“You’re younger than the one with the eyes aren’t you.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I can tell by the way you hold yourself, the way you talk with no authority.”

“I said shut up,” Jinsoul took another step towards the cage.

“Or what?” the Lycan didn’t move. 

“Or you will find thousands of needles anywhere I can put them.”

The flash of white again.

“That would almost sound like a threat, if it were coming from someone other than you.”

“Don’t test me.” Jinsoul couldn’t fathom why she was letting herself be pulled into this game but she felt compelled to have the last word.

“We will see.” 

Jinsoul was centimeters away from the bars now. Her willingness to surrender to her curiosity had betrayed her. 

Her eyes could see well in the dark but not pick out the details. The Lycan was almost a silhouette, still dressed in the clothes she’d been brought in: a leather jacket, a shirt––casual, basic, unidentifiable––except for the glove that covered her right hand. 

“Listen, Dog,” Jinsoul saw the Lycan shift at the name, “I’m going to take some of your blood.”

“Good luck.”

“I don’t need luck. I have silver.” 

She heard an exhale make its way out of the grimacing Lycan.

Jinsoul held up the needle she had crafted with the silver tip. Lycans could regenerate fast––too fast for a normal needle to penetrate the skin far enough to collect blood––the silver would prevent that. 

“You can’t get to me from there, you’ll have to open the cage.”

Jinsoul was not going to fall for that again. That was how the lycan escaped last time.

“No, you come here.”

“Why would I come anywhere near you.”

“Because I told you to,” her tone wasn’t doing much to convince herself, let alone the lycan.

“I don’t take orders, I give them.”

“You’re not in a position to right now. I mean, just look around.”

“No? What position am I in then?” The Lycan’s words were tinged with lightheartedness, as though she were not currently imprisoned and being used as a lab rat. 

_ Test 12: failed. _

“One where you’re going to put your arm through these bars so I can take a sample of your blood.”

“And if I don’t?”

Jinsoul had nothing, really. She wasn’t a fighter. 

“That’s not going to be a problem because you will.”

“No, I don’t fancy that.”

Jinsoul was aware their voices were becoming louder. 

“Look. Please can you just give me your arm, this would be so much easier if you just would.”

“Open the door and come in then.”

She shouldn’t. She really shouldn’t. 

“Ugh. Just don’t do anything stupid again _. _ ”

She felt her hand unlocking the door, as though she was under her compulsion. The lycan would be weaker this time, she reasoned. The silver cage had made sure of that.

“I’m not going to try anything, I just wanted to see you up close again.”

Jinsoul’s hand paused. She wasn’t a fool. 

“If that’s your only excuse, you’re better off just giving me your arm through the bar.”

*

She awoke again, the drapes letting the red sky into her room. If only there was a way to blot out the sun for good. She shakes her head to rid her mind of the dead lycan child. 

Another human’s flesh under her teeth.

She wonders if she can remember how their blood smelled.

*

“My name is Sooyoung.”

Jinsoul’s back was to the lycan as she tested the form of the name in her mouth. 

“I never asked.”

“I think you wanted to. You like knowing things.”

_ Test 23: failed. _

Jinsoul turned to Sooyoung. “And what do you know about what I like?” 

“Plenty. I know you like writing down literally everything that happens. I know you like reading to find out information––or your face wouldn’t be stuck to a book half the time––and I know you like being here.”

“I’ll tell you what I really like,” she took a step forward so her face was a hair away from the bars, licking her lips she continued, “I really like when you don’t talk.” 

Sooyoung rolled her eyes and scoffed. “You don’t have to lie to yourself, I know you keep coming down here because I’m great company.”

“You’re like the sun to me.”

“Awww, see? That's the nicest thing you’ve ever said.”

“I’m a vampire, Sooyoung.”

She didn’t expect to hear the clear ring of a laugh, nor did she expect it to emit a similar response from herself. But something about the moment seemed to chip away at a wall Jinsoul didn’t know she was cowering behind.

*

Above her is a ceiling she barely recognises. There is no lightning. No scratches. No faces. No dead child at her feet. No red sun reminding her humans were destructive and stupid. 

Blinking slowly, gauging her surroundings, taking in the broken industrial fan she has been meaning to repair.

She’d been asleep. She had definitely been asleep. 

Sooyoung is still in her cage, asleep. Her face looks peaceful, as if her body had forgotten she was captive in a prison that would slowly deplete her body's resources. There is neither a single brow furrow, nor the usual self importance that her conscious self bled. 

Jinsoul becomes aware she’s been looking for too long––it must be because she needs to feed.

Reflexively she cracks her back as she stands up and stretches. She darts her eyes to Sooyoung again, hoping that the noise doesn’t wake her...Only to prevent the usual yapping, of course.

Making her way up the stairs, she counts every step. Her body feels rested, but the tremor has returned to her hands. 

*

“Why don’t you ever give me your right arm?” Jinsoul held the needle in the air, pausing her usual motion.

“My veins are more prominent on my left, just use my left,” Sooyoung shook her arm to accentuate her point.

Looking down, Jinsoul took in the structure of the veins hidden under a blanket of flesh. Of course she was just looking for the vein, but her instinct drew her to blood coursing within them. Of course. She looked at the contrast from the exposed to the covered arms. 

“Why do you wear that glove still?”

“It’s my style.”

“It’s been weeks, Sooyoung. It’s probably dirty.”

Jinsoul reached towards it with her free hand, but Sooyoung reflexively snatched hers away. Jinsoul felt something drop in her stomach. She must have forgotten to feed. 

“So what if it’s dirty.”

“It’s not like in here it is the most hygienic of places. I do what I can, but you’re not allowed out.”

“Well maybe you should mind your business.”

Jinsoul’s jaw hung agape momentarily before whatever dropped in her stomach took form in rage coming out of her mouth.

“I don’t have to be like this with you, you know? I could just call down the Second Sired and she would pull you apart limb from limb because she likes it. You’re a  _ prisoner _ Sooyoung. But sure if you want to get all hurt about a fucking glove go ahead.” 

“Fine!” Sooyoung ripped the entire sleeve and glove in one tearing motion, her voice ringing off the silver bars. “You wanna see so bad?!”

She’d read about it in books. She’d seen it in wolf form. A dark calloused scar wrapped from Sooyoung’s hand up to her shoulder in a spiral motion as if to piece the skin together and hold her bones in place. 

A regen. 

Sooyoung looked at her expectantly, waiting for the words of disgust to pour from Jinsoul’s mouth. Instead, she reached out to touch it again, leaving Sooyoung too stunned to move. 

If anyone knew about having to show scars, the ones that dragged over Jinsoul’s face would make her an expert. 

“How did this happen?”

“How did  _ yours _ happen?”

The words instantly made her recoil as the memories of a giant paw and the raking of claws flashed through her head. 

She turned, closing the cage door behind her as she went back to her paperwork. 

She brushed off some of the old brick debris on her desk, attempting to find the correct appendices about regeneration only to come up short:

_ APPENDIX VI _ _  
  
_

_ There has only been one sufficient and proven method in disabling a Lycan permanently. The first use of this method is recorded in 1446, during Vlad the Impaler’s first reign.  _

_ During the invasion of Wallachia, it is noted that Vlad attempted dismemberment when dealing with the Lycans. This proved futile in practise due to the well documented regeneration of Lycan limbs. It isn’t until the answer prophetically came to him in a dream wherein he felt inspiration to remove the entrails of the Lycans, therefore stopping any regeneration, resulting in death.  _

Words were muttered under her breath about Sooyoung being difficult and rude as she fixed the samples from the day before under her microscope.

Test 32 had proven to be a failure, the combination of vampire cells had destroyed the lycan ones once again. 

She wrote in her book, clacking her pen on her bottom row of teeth as she paused between words.

She needed the vampire cells to take on the regenerative properties the lycan ones had. Then they might stand a chance of fighting against the lycans even with her own kind’s dwindling numbers. 

*

Her eyes blink up at the ceiling again, another restful sleep under her belt. But the pang of hunger in her veins pressed her more than ever and made her tiptoe her way past a sleeping Sooyoung. 

She’s not sure how she keeps finding herself in this situation but perhaps Sooyoung's words had found the cracks in Jinsoul’s safely built wall. Perhaps the cracks were fracturing and some of the sunlight from the other side was beginning to shine through. 

She feels the heat she's draining from the body in her hands and wonders if Sooyoung feels this warmth against her own marble skin. 

Something had happened to Sooyoung in the way that something had ripped at Jinsoul’s face. Sooyoung was a part of this war. She knew why she wouldn’t want to say, reliving the past hurts. Being with people hurts. Mother had told her to be careful, had anyone done the same for Sooyoung? She shook her head and left the human she was feeding on with enough blood to survive. 

*

Her left sleeve was rolled up, her arm outstretched, taking care not to touch the bars as she held it out. 

“Make it quick?”

“I didn’t expect you to be so compliant, Sooyoung.”

“I just want it over with, there’s no point delaying the inevitable.”

Jinsoul held back the smile that came with the swell of victory as she pressed the needle into Sooyoung’s arm. 

Returning to her usual seat at a monitor, she slowly extracted the blood into a vial. 

“So what’s the topic today, Jinsoul?”

Jinsoul grippeds the needle harder, preventing it from slipping.

“Say it again.”

“What?”

“My name.”

“Jinsoul.”

She gives Sooyoung her back. Her eyes searching for something, anything to focus on.

“Jinsoul?”

“Yes. Yes.” she splutters back.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m..I’m just. Wait there,” She chews on her bottom lip, hoping to find something to ground her.

“Oh yeah,  _ “wait here” _ , like I have a choice!”

She doesn’t have the capacity to return a quip at Sooyoung’s sarcasm. She's too busy thanking something that she does not have the ability to blush. 

“You know I wanted to ask you something.”

“Hm?” Jinsoul is writing some nonsensical gibberish on a paper. Her eyes momentarily linger on the failed test 59’s results.

“You really don’t know who I am?”

She turns around finally, “you’re named Sooyoung and you’re a lycan,” the last word is hollow sounding as it leaves her mouth.

“You’re not wrong, but there’s a lot more to it than that though.”

“Well you can’t be as important as you think you are because I’ve never heard of you,” she didn’t want to think about how it took the Chosen herself to bring Sooyoung down here. 

“You’re keeping me alive for a reason.”

“To study.”

“Hm. I’m getting tired.”

“Of me or in general?” Jinsoul finds herself standing up as if to accept a challenge.

Sooyoung just smiles to the floor, “How much do you really know about us?”

“I know the history of your kind, I’ve only spent my life studying you—you as in lycans—not you personally.”

“Except now.”

Something tugged at her insides and she decided to ignore it, “so anyway the concise version is that vampires were created, ruled over the humans and the gods of old were jealous of our power so sent the  _ dogs _ to eradicate all vampires” 

An exhale.

“That’s so biased. They really do fill your head with propaganda bullshit.”

Jinsoul found herself tutting, Mother had been telling her that story since she was fresh from her transformation. 

Sooyoung continued, “Vampires were about to wipe the humans out because you’re greedy, we were sent to prevent you from doing that, we are the protectors of the earth.” 

“Protectors of the earth… then why are you protecting humans? They certainly don’t care. Have you looked outside the last few years? You know the humans did that to the sun don’t you?”

“I thought vampires burned in the sun.”

“I can look but that’s not my point—”

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes.”

There’s a contentious pause between the two of them but Jinsoul decides to severe it before she can understand why it’s there in the first place, “okay  _ protector _ . Do you think my kind don’t deserve life?”

“I never said that.”

“The lycans purpose is to protect the earth and you’re eradicating us when we neutralize the biggest threat to the planet?” Jinsoul steps closer to the cage.

“We are simply defending ourselves and the humans as is our purpose.  _ You _ started it when  _ you _ started killing us,” Sooyoung is nearer the bars now.

“That’s not true,  _ you _ started it.” Jinsoul pointed a finger.

“No,  _ you  _ upset the balance,” Sooyoung pointed back, “there has to be balance or the world as we know it will end.” 

Jinsoul couldn’t argue with that last sentence, not scientifically, not logically, not emotionally. But would it be so bad if it did change.

_ Test 94: failed. _

“I need to run some tests,” she made her way to the steps.

“Jinsoul, wait.”

She stopped. 

“Please stay a little longer, it gets lonely down here.”

She wants to tell her she’s wrong and that they didn’t start it and that this whole war is pointless because really what good comes of killing. 

Instead she finds her feet moving her back to the chair she recently vacated.

*

Admitting addiction requires one to be aware of its existence infiltrating decision making in day to day life. Fleeing the dreams, sleeping in the lab, Sooyoung, not waking her in the hopes she’ll never know Jinsoul slept there. 

She took too long to feed and the human struggled against her. She’s preoccupied. But her grip tightened.

The personal darkness was retreating, the nightmares a mere memory. She stands at the remains of the wall, one day the sun might engulf her. 

But Jinsoul is a creature of the night. 

*

She would never let on that the silver was taking a toll on her physically, Jinsoul knew that. She would ask her routine questions about Sooyoung’s wellbeing and her answers were always the same: _ “Fine,” “No,” “I feel the same.” _

Grey pooling under her skin couldn’t be hidden forever. 

Jinsoul monitored her intake of food while she herself forgot to hunt.

She knows the only wall between them is the physical cage that Sooyoung is in. Jinsoul clinging onto every word that passes between the bars like sunlight streaming in from a window. 

“I have enough of your blood already,” Jinsoul found the words leaving her lips.

_ Test 484: failed. _

Sooyoung’s unwavering gaze held some confusion and Jinsoul knew she’s betrayed everything she's ever stood for.

“I don’t know if I think it's fair to watch you decline every day,” of course it's a lot more than just that.

“I’m tired of the war, Jinsoul,” her arms are folded across her knees and her chin rests on them. She looks tired of everything. 

Jinsoul’s eyes move to the still rusted industrial fan and back to Sooyoung, her mind always thinking of solutions, always trying to fix things, Sooyoung is not a machine, she can't be fixed like one. Sooyoung is the sun. Sooyoung should be free.

“I’m not sure how to help you.”

“It’s enough that you’re here.”

She felt life being pushed into her body, it was unnatural. 

“What about the balance?”

“With all your papers I’m sure you can find something to fix it right? That’s what you do.”

Jinsoul began to wonder as her fingertips dug into the floor if Sooyoung knew her better than she thought and perhaps a piece of her selfishly wanted her to stay and maybe Sooyoung wanted that too.

“You know I let myself be captured by the one with eyes right?”

A breath that doesn’t exist holds itself in Jinsoul’s lungs. 

“She killed my sister.”

Or maybe Sooyoung only wants vengeance.

“I wanted to kill her.” 

“So why didn’t you?” Jinsoul’s words came out shaky, she needed to know where she stood now. 

“When the only thing that drives you is revenge life becomes pointless after you achieve it. In the grand scheme of things what is me taking one life? The balance is bigger than revenge. In fact, knowing you made me realise that.”

And Jinsoul realises the sun doesn’t always have to burn and it can be forgiving. 

*

The tremble in her hands has worsened and she couldn't remember the last time she’s fed. Someone can’t replace basic needs and Jinsoul was forgetting about hers.

  
She felt human clumsily stumble into her. She drank, the process to her felt mechanical, had it always? Had she always lived her life like this. One day to the next. Following her routine that she’d found herself slip out of so seamlessly. 

Logistically she should be scared, there’s a lot to lose, there's a lot of risk. She wasn’t calculating anymore. 

It had been easy, to let the nightmares stop, it had been easy to slowly see what was on the other side and now she was looking to see how much she had destroyed one brick at a time.

It was easy. 

It was as easy as slipping into the heaviness of a deep sleep. 

Easy as waking up to sunlight pouring through the window.

Every part of her was yelling to tell Sooyoung or maybe it was the human in her clutches. 

It was both. 

She let them drop. She couldn’t hold it any longer, she had to tell Sooyoung. She had to tell her now. 

*

She wished she hadn't been so foolish as to think that maybe when she had skipped steps to get to the lab, that maybe when her heart felt like it was in her throat, that maybe she would have ripped the cage door open, and that maybe she would have been saved by the sun.

You can’t be saved by the sun when it can only destroy you.

And when she’d looked at the empty cage, she realised it.

“How did she escape, Jinsoul?”

She wished she knew. 

“Mother should have never let you back down there after the first time. She should have let me deal with it,” the Second Sired scuffed a leather boot on the stone floor.

She was right, Sooyoung wasn’t interested in her, she was interested in getting away.

“You really don’t know who she is…”

Her wall with its Sooyoung shaped fissure made her a perfect target. 

“She’s a lycan.”

The Second Sired spun a dagger between her fingers, “I’m sure you know more than that. I heard you got quite cosy, that’s what Mother said.”

A swallow rose and fell, her eyes fixed to the specimen jar in her hand,  _ what else does Mother know? _

“At first I just put it down to you being married to your work. It’s good that at least you could be gifted in  _ something _ . Especially after that lycan made you useless elsewhere,” she faked interest in some notes on the desk and ran her free hand along them, “but we’re designed to be out there snapping jaws, not shuffling papers.”

“I have results to give to Mother now. It wasn’t all for naught.”

She had one thing and it is useless. 

Jinsoul began to realise that the Second Sired was pacing around her, effectively imprisoning her in an invisible circle. She continued to stare at the jar in her hand, she wouldn’t let intimidation tactics work on her this time. 

“Hmm interesting. Not that I'm upset or anything that I wasn’t told about our captive and you got time to run your... _ tests _ .” 

She knows the Chosen had specifically warned against this information being taken by the wrong people. She knows the Second Sired isn’t one for anything other than violence. 

There is suddenly a face inches away from hers. 

“You really didn’t know that was Yves?”

The specimen jar she’d been gripping too tightly found its way to the floor.

This is wrong. Sooyoung, she had been with Sooyoung.

“The one named after the evening, descendant of Fenrir...” she paused, “leader of the pack.” 

The cogs were jammed. She knelt to collect the glass. 

“You really didn’t know?”

Jinsoul picked up a jagged edge and felt it slice cleanly into her palm. 

“No,” she said blankly and just like that Sooyoung was no longer just Sooyoung and the sun did burn and the sting of her cut reminded her how pain was. 

“I’m not the only one our beloved Chosen keeps things from then. I should feel better about that at least.” She stabbed her dagger into  _ Appendix V: Lycan habits,  _ “I’ll collect her skin soon enough.”

*

_ Lightning splits the sky and illuminates the battlefield once more. Jinsoul’s eyes dart to figures that surround her, the lycans are easy to pick out; taller, shapeshifting, wolf-like but much more deformed. She is searching when a disfigured corpse is thrown at her feet. She looks down at its silhouette, its jaw had been ripped off, the work of Mother’s Second Sired.  _

_ The haze of blood in the atmosphere is messing with her senses, she can’t smell her, concern gnawing at her once human stomach. She is too unfocused on the search rather than the fight in front of her, so she doesn’t move in time when a giant set of claws rakes across her face. Her vision is obscured as fluid pours down from her forehead. The pain sets in and she brings her own hand to the wound, a growl next to her ear. She wipes the blood away and sees the claws reaching around her again. This is it.  _

_ The arm it belongs to however never reaches her; instead she sees it in the hands of Mother’s Chosen, detached from the body it belongs to. Her eyes piercing, even in the darkness, she isn’t looking at Jinsoul, rather she is looking at the threat still present behind her. Jinsoul turns to see the lycan still standing, where its arm had been ripped off, the distal end of the limb is beginning to regenerate.  _

_ Jinsoul might have felt a surge of empathy at the look the monster had in its eyes, before a smaller lycan launched itself at Mother’s Chosen. Jinsoul’s instincts find her catapulted at the beast, they roll, flecks of mud slap them as they go. She hears her name being called somewhere but it is difficult to get her bearings while jaws snap at her face and she finds herself underneath them. She brings her knees up to her chin, planting her boots on the chest of the lycan to push it off. It stumbles backwards and growls at her, low and dangerous. The battle is disorientating, she is alive purely by luck. Jinsoul isn’t reactive, Jinsoul is methodical. The lycan gears up to charge, its breath hanging in the air with each exhale. Jinsoul knows she isn’t as strong but maybe it is just as inexperienced as her, this beast seemed young, smaller. She digs her heels into the dirt, steeling herself for its imminent attack. She watches the muscles ripple, she sees the hand full of entrails appear through the stomach. The hand retracts, the wolf falls and once again Mother’s Chosen is there, her eyes, it is hard to look at her with those eyes.  _

_ “Stop killing them so quickly, love, I need a new coat!” the Second Sired yells at the Chosen as she snaps the jaw of the lycan pressing her.  _

_ Jinsoul looks down to the morphing lycan, returning to its human state. She hates this part the most. And she is right. She is young.  _

_ Savages, sending off children to fight their wars. When this is over, the thousand year war, they would establish order again under Mother’s guidance.  _

_ The throb of her wound alerts her she is healing, the drying blood cakes to her face but a wound from a lycan will always leave a mark.  _

*

The light from the permanently red sky cast itself directly onto her face. The realisation she’d forgotten to close the drapes again dawned on her but she is already awake, there is no need to return to rest again. 

She ran water over her face, brushed out her hair, and found her pressed crisp lab coat hanging on the wardrobe waiting for her. 

The descent down to the labs is so familiar she can walk it with her eyes shut and her feet can lead her down the three hundred and eleven steps. At around the halfway mark the air becomes notably still and colder, then as she nears the lab itself the hum of heat from the technology is a welcome change. Jinsoul knows the routine.

*

_ “Isn’t that really what everyone is looking for? A reason to exist.” _

__

_ “I don’t think it needs to involve another person?” _

_ But what if it did. _

She let the lifeless body drop to her feet and with the back of her hand, she wipes her mouth. She thought taking in the last bit of life would make her feel something different, it didn’t.

*

She touches the back of her neck habitually with a burnt hand, half expecting a cold sweat to have crept out of her pores, but of course, she hadn’t felt that in decades. 

She sat up, recognised the deep red of the sun and realised it is too early for her to be awake.

In a strung out haze she had forgotten to close the blinds, again. Holy water had the tendency to do that, make her forget things. If only it was the things she wanted to forget.

She cursed the light as it prickled her skin, one day she would have her revenge on it. She would have her revenge on a lot of things.

She smoothed out her hair and found her creased lab coat hanging on the wardrobe waiting for her, it's not like there is use in getting it pressed anymore.

Jinsoul knows the routine, she knows it would only be her for hours, back to her previous incarnation before Sooyoung, the familiarity of solitude.

*

She clutches a crucifix again, feeling the burn etch into the palm of her hand. It was good to feel something, it was good to feel something other than what was inside, other than what was dancing around in the pit of her stomach. She snarled a little as the skin tried to heal. Few things leave scars on vampire skin: crucifixes, stakes, and lycans. 

Lycans who had been perfectly engineered to be the opposite and equal to them. 

The Gods of old deciding those who craved immortality would not go unchallenged and unchecked. 

_ Balance _ . There had to be balance. 

Cruelly, the balance for Jinsoul had come in the form of Sooyoung. And worse still, it had vanished with her. 

She poured herself another shot of Holy Water. 

Her work at least. She had her work.

She knocks it back, feeling the instant burn fill her esophagus and acrid liquid heat flow down to her stomach. 

If the balance didn’t exist in the form of Sooyoung then maybe it was time to give Mother what she wanted. 

She would give Mother a way. 

She had been right after all.

  
  


*

It comes too easily. 

“Oh my little lamb. What have we gotten ourselves into?” She runs her fingernails through Jinsoul’s scalp, massaging, easing her, letting her worries slide away with each graze. 

She lets the secrets about the cells spill from her lips. 

  
  


And Mother returns them by naming her nightmares.

She should have known the mark on her from Sooyoung was only because Sooyoung had left the physical one all those years ago. 

Sooyoung had been there on the battlefield that day. Jinsoul didn’t know it then but the first time she’d felt Sooyoung’s touch was when her claws were lacerating her skin. 

*

She tossed and turned. The frustration caught in her throat like a hand wrapped firmly around it. It’s futile to wrestle with sleep. she punched the bed hoping to expel something. 

Her skin itched again and she reached for the crucifix. Holy water wasn’t at her disposal but she could find it when the sun set. She closed her eyes as the cross made its imprint into her hand. Her mind only focused on the physical pain so she can ignore the other kind.

Sooyoung’s claws ripping her face. Sooyoung’s mutilated arm growing back. Sooyoung’s sister snapping her jaws in Jinsoul’s face until Sooyoung’s sister is dead at her feet.

*

“You’re not like this, Jinsoul.”

The Chosen’s eyes bore into her but she knows better than to speak, she just nods, shifting herself to the side of the room to let her pass. She doesn’t move.

“I know about everything. I’ve known for a while.”

Jinsoul swallowed, of course she knew. She’d been foolish to think she could act carelessly and not be caught. She ignored the question on her tip of her tongue,  _ why didn’t you say anything? _

“It’s hard to see you like this.”

Jinsoul blinked. What she thought was nothing particularly profound had decided to have its own gravitational pull and was swallowing everything around her.

The Chosen continued in the wake of Jinsoul’s silence, “it must have given you some sort of relief, otherwise why would you keep doing it?”

She had always been the more introspective between her and the Second Sired. Jinsoul watches as her face remains blank, wondering what other thoughts she had before Jinsoul herself spoke, “My nightmares stopped. It makes sense now. They stopped because she held what could make me whole again. She was what caused all this, she was the one who could take it away.”

The Chosen did not respond straight away, rather she stared ahead, if Jinsoul didn’t know better she would’ve swore she’d seen ghosts dance in the Chosen’s eyes, “it’s good you found something that can help us.” 

Her gaze doesn’t break Jinsoul this time when she looks at her, something in her is softer. 

“I think you deserve to know the truth.”

Truth… like the one that Sooyoung was really Yves, that she was the one who left Jinsoul with this scar, that Sooyoung's sister was the child that haunted Jinsoul for the last few decades, that Sooyoung only let herself be caught to kill the Chosen, that Sooyoung made Jinsoul think there was something else, something between them in order to survive so she could make her escape.

What truth could she utter that would change anything now. 

Jinsoul was still lost in the dark and exposed amongst rubble. 

“She’s still here.”

The wave of nausea swamped her insides, she didn’t know she could even spill her stomach contents. 

“They just moved her to keep her away from you.”

Her body tensed before each release until she had nothing left to give. Her state became catatonic until the Chosen grabbed her jaw, pulling her face up. Her eyes sharp again, piercing, “listen well, Jinsoul. I will take you to her but you cannot save her. It’s just so you can say goodbye.”

_ Goodbye? _

*

It’s irrational. 

And she looked worse than ever.

But Jinsoul found herself reaching through new bars to find branded wrists with her burnt hands.

It’s unfair.

She’s not even sure what to say, so Sooyoung does it for her.

“If you think I’m going to hurt myself for you—“ but before she can croak out the rest, Jinsoul finds Sooyoung’s lips pushing against hers. 

It’s rough and coarse and desperate like the weight of years had been waiting for it. And she finds herself just where she lost it in Sooyoung. 

The burning of Sooyoung’s skin is in her ears and she feels the wet on her face and she is unsure if it's from her or Sooyoung. 

But she’s ripped away before she can settle into the feeling.

“Mother?”

“Shhh. Shhh. Let me wipe this dirt from you.” She smeared her thumb across Jinsoul’s lips. 

Jinsoul felt the power radiate from her touch and her body relaxed but her mind started to scream. The Chosen led her here for this. It all clicks. The Chosen let her think she would simply be done after this. She knew Mother could only work with soft hearts, the power of suggestion and Jinsoul’s was weak from Sooyoung. The Second Sired had interrogated her just to expose her findings. And now Sooyoung was still here, and they’d all known. The pieces fell into place. She's been betrayed. 

A gaunt Sooyoung opened her mouth to speak but Mother gave her the suggestion of silence and she found herself unable to utter a single word under Mother’s control.

“It can’t be helped. Your heart is so fragile, I’ve been trying to keep you safe for so long.”

“Yes Mother.” Jinsoul heard her own voice say.

Mother’s hands stroked her scalp, fingers teased her roots and dullness washed over her.

“She’s an animal, Jinsoul. She manipulated you, I should have never let you get so close.”

The screaming in her brain sounded more distant now, as if it’s on the outside of a window.

“The fault is mine, Mother.”

“Now, now I can't help but feel responsible. That’s why I will be here with you when we watch her destroy herself.”

The screaming beats on the window, it was dark outside.

“Destroy herself, Mother?”

“Yes, my lamb. We have watched her eat her limbs as she starves, and now that you are here we will begin the blood tolling and observe how the regen stops working. That’s what all your hard work has been for. All your tests never failed, they just showed you that we must exterminate them by injecting them with our cells. It’s the natural order,” Mother’s fingers were still, the pressure remained. 

“My hard work, yes.”

“She must suffer, Jinsoul, for her sins.”

“She must suffer.” 

The screams were just a buzz in her ear, her eyes half lidded, her mind placated. 

The Second Sired blurred face appeared in her peripheral as she felt her eyelids being clamped open and a voice that isn’t the one she loves slipped into her ear.

“This is the first trial of your life’s work Jinsoul. None of this would’ve been possible without you. I want to make sure you don’t miss a thing.”

And she watches as the sun is snuffed out for the last time.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> the road to hell is paved with good intentions...
> 
> thank you for reading, comments and kudos always appreciated
> 
> twt & cc: entropyves


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